Human Rights Conference Scams
Once a week, maybe more, I receive an e-mail invitation to participate in a generic-sounding conference, usually in an exotic location. Often, the conference topics are human rights related — perhaps focused on worldwide trafficking or child abuse.
I almost always delete these invitations immediately and think nothing more about them. I suppose most folks who receive them do the same thing.
But apparently there’s more to this than meets the eye. What I took to be simply poorly-worded and vague descriptions are actually evidence of a human rights conference scam.
The problem is so pervasive that the Union of International Associations and the International Dance Council (UNESCO) developed a checklist to assist recipients in identifying fraudulent conferences. The UIA also runs a Fraud Monitor website where it reproduces some of the fraudulent invitations that it has identified. First on the list?: An invitation from the fictitious (and redundant) Global Human Right World Organization. Further down the list, another invitation offering full round-trip airfare to California to participate in a meeting on Global Security and Human Rights. I remember receiving this one myself!
As the Fraud Monitor explains: “An increasing number of email scams are using NGOs, International NGOs, development agencies, meetings, international conferences etc as the hook to defraud or cheat unsuspecting recipients. Always use caution when responding to or acting on unsolicited bulk email or paper mail.”
How do these scams work? Here’s a description from a Ph.D. student who was taken in by a fraudulent announcement for a climate change conference: “I’m a Ph.D student at the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon. I received the announcement from a lecturer of my laboratory and submitted an accepted abstract. Later on, the organizers said that I have a scholarship of 1 888 £ and that I should send 350 £ for hotel fees and 500 £ for Mandatory Refundable Security Deposit. Once more again, they ask me to send 450 £ for Health Insurance Certificate and I started to think twice. When I refused to do that, they told me that, I must be in London to get in touch with my money.”
According to one observer, after the organizers of these “conferences” have collected a few thousand pounds from unsuspecting graduate students/academics like this one, they shut down their website and move on to the next scam.
Fake human rights conferences are not the only conference scams on the web — scams of this type are a hazard in many fields. But human rights language seems to be particularly susceptible to the sorts of vague, aspirational descriptions favored by scammers, and the international scope of human rights allows scammers to target folks across continents.
So beware. Read the invitation carefully before assuming that it’s the real deal — one conference scam letter was signed by none other than Angelina Ballerina, a clear tip-off to its phony origins. Ask questions before handing over any funds. And if you organize a real conference, come up with a (non-redundant) title that will distinguish your event from a scam conference!